It seemed far fetched, 30 years ago, when journalists would joke about the news gatherer of the future: a camera with a long, extendable robotic arm holding a microphone. The camera operator would push a button and the robo-microphone would ask its subject, "What happened?"
It's not going down in quite the same way those reporters envisioned a generation ago, but robo-reporting is here. Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the way routine stories, such as earnings reports, get covered. And some newsrooms, who can now free reporters up for more challenging assignments, are actually happy about the practice. Courtesy PR Week.